The recent A Night to Remember episode of Mad Men featured a serious post dinner party meltdown from the perfect on the outside, tormented on the inside, housewife Betty.
Betty's fit was a long time coming (what with Don cheating on her and treating her like a child), but the mom in me empathized with her reaction the next morning.
She sat at the breakfast table with her two little ones, smoking a cigarette (it couldn't have been 8 a.m. yet!) in the dress she wore the night before. Though she didn't say a thing and her husband didn't acknowledge her while the kids happily said goodbye to daddy, the scene presented tension that was surely being absorbed — even if subconsciously — by the tots. Do you and your partner try and hide your disagreements from your children and if so, how do you manage the tension when the kids are around?
Photo courtesy of AMC
Alberta Ferretti
T-Bags
Argos
My parents fought in front of my brother and I very often and the fights were usually quite bad. It has impacted me significantly to the point that I freak out if my husband and I fight. I've been working on this and it is getting better. Fortunately, we don't really fight on a regular basis and when we do, it's civil.
So thanks to my parents, we will NEVER fight in front of our kids. A little disagreement? OK. That's normal. A full on argument? Never going to happen.
1no and it should never happen, that is one of the most scaring things you can do
2No, we don't hide it. We don't do full on fights (which we never do privately either, it's just not us), but I think it's very important that children see disagreement and that it can be resolved with love.
3i agree with pinkprincess1101
4we don't fight......now we will talk. but he refused to even argue with me. his parents never did, so he won't. now i grew up in a yelling....all out fighting kinda family. it took me a while to learn that he wouldn't fight with me. i used to try so hard to him to fight with me to no avail just because that what i was used to. now i'm glad he taught me the error of my ways....
5my parents only fought in front of us once--it was so traumatizing that to this day the three of us adult kids still refer to it as 'black tuesday.' of course they fought other times, but never in front of us. i appreciated it then, and i still do.
6For some reason my daughter has a way of making us forget we are angry with each other.
If we start yelling (which is VERY rare) in front of her, we just tell her we are talking or working something out. Sometimes if I'm worked up about work or something though, she'll think I'm mad at him, but I explain to her that I'm not. She understands pretty well so that helps.
We usually only fight when she's not around though. (I'll just ignore him if I'm pissed.) But like our bigger fights we have when she's not there. We are both very passionate, so our fights can get bizarre.. but making up is always way more passionate. I like it that way. I wouldn't want to be in a relationship that I couldn't express myself in.
7My mom and dad never fought in front of me so I was sort of surprised when they got a divorce. My dad and stepmother never fought in front of me either and they hate each other now. I think it would have been good to see adults arguing and then working things out. Not full on fighting of course.
8Knock down, drag outs; no. Disagreements; yes. Kids need to see that life is not all sunshine and happiness, but if we do have a disagreement in front of them, we make sure they see us hugging and making up.
9I agree with Greggie.
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